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When you employ artifice, you use clever tricks and cunning to deceive someone.

If someone beguiles you, you are charmed and attracted by her.

Candor is the quality of being honest and open in speech or action.

If you use chicanery, you are using clever plans and trickery to cheat and deceive people.

Something that is delusive deceives you by giving a false belief about yourself or the situation you are in.

Someone who is disingenuous is not straightforward or is dishonest in what he says or does.

If you accuse someone of duplicity you think that he is dishonest and intends to trick you.

A fallacy is an idea or belief that is false.

A figurehead in an organization is the apparent head or head in name only, while the real power lies somewhere else.

If something is gilded it has been deceptively given a more attractive appearance than it might normally possess; a very thin layer of gold often covers something gilded.

If you describe something as illusory you mean that although it appears real or possible, it is in fact not real.

Something that is inconspicuous does not attract attention and is not easily seen or noticed because it is small or ordinary.

People who are ingenuous are trusting and believe everything that people tell them, especially because they have not had much life experience.

Something that is latent exists but is not active or has not developed at the moment, but may develop or become active in the future.

A machination is a secretive plan or clever plot that is carefully designed to control events or people.

A mendacious person is not telling the truth.

An overt act is not hidden or secret, but is done in an open and public way.

A patent situation is one that is wide open and unconcealed; it is both evident and obvious.

If you prevaricate, you avoid giving a direct or honest answer, usually because you want to hide the truth or want to delay or avoid making a hard decision.

Probity is very moral and honest behavior.

The salient qualities of an issue or feature are those that are most important and noticeable.

Something that is specious seems to be good, sound, or correct but is actually wrong or fake.

If you employ subterfuge you use a secret plan or action to get what you want while carefully hiding your true intentions.

A surreptitious deed is done secretly to avoid bringing any attention to it.

A veneer is a thin layer, such as a thin sheet of expensive wood over a cheaper type of wood to give a false appearance of higher quality; a person can also put forth a false front or veneer.

The veracity of something is its truthfulness.

Verisimilitude is something’s authenticity, or quality of something appearing real or true.

The verity of something is the truth or reality of it.

Wiles are clever tricks or cunning schemes that are used to persuade someone to do what you want.

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Adj.

ostensible

o-STEN-suh-buhl

Context

I told my parents that I was ostensibly going to the library to study, but my real reason was to meet my girlfriend Fran there. I then told Fran an ostensible or alleged truth that I wanted to take her out to eat at Charlie’s, but the real reason was that I wanted to see my buddy Joe on the way. I gave Joe the supposed or ostensible reason that I wanted to see how he was doing, but the actual reason was that I wanted to borrow his cool new car to make Ronnie jealous, whose house we would pass on our way out to eat.

Memory Hook

Tense So Not Able Although I told my boss that I was tense and so needed to rest, that was nothing but an ostensible excuse for not being able to complete the work on time because I wanted to spend my time social networking instead.

Examples

The game’s system of governance had become a management expert’s nightmare, with the ostensible boss — the commissioner — at the bottom of an inverted pyramid, crushed under the various whims of the 26 team owners.
—Sports Illustrated

The ostensible problem this measure would solve is the recent spike in interest rates on 'jumbo' home loans — mortgages larger than the current Fannie-Freddie cap of 417,000.
—The Washington Post

The ostensible rationale is that people do not understand nutrition, that educating them will drive up demand for healthier foods, and that the industry will be happy to meet that demand.
—Los Angeles Times

The ostensible political purpose may be ending the war, but the immediate occupation for a sizable percentage of these people always seemed to be a kind of rolling adult tourist attraction called Hating George Bush.
—Rolling Stone

Word Ingredients

An ostensible reason is reasonably or plausibly “capable of being stretched out towards” a listener as a handy excuse for doing something other than what you say you are going to do, although it appears that you are doing it anyway.

Word Theater

Salinger (2013) A journal ostensibly written by the famous author JD Salinger.

The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!